Sol has been without a cycle 24 spot since January 13th. Today the spotless streak was broken with this high latitude and correct polarity spot. The current sunspot number is now at 12 according to SWPC.
The SOHO Magnetogram image below shows how the North-South polarity is oriented:
The real question is: how long will it last? Most of the cycle 24 spots we’ve seen so far have very short lifetimes, winking out in a day or two.
the reason is very clear: a solar cycle contains only 20 truly independent data points
And what might be 15 or so truly independent data points recorded would change dramatically if 5 of the missing days WERE the independent data points.
There is no way to tell that, is there?
Nature does things that defy statistics.
You own TSI reconstruction in your paper is in fact an outlier, and as such, neither one of us truly knows whether it is the actual occurence or not.
Ian’s post above gives the only reasonable answer, and that is to take the median.
I am truly sorry that the telescope and instrumentation was not invented earlier, but we all have to live with what was recorded as well as what was not recorded.
Otherwise, too much noise is injected.
Leif…you weaken your platform when you make so many assumptions.
You do this all the time.
Your amount of deduction (as opposed to induction) is contrary to the spirit of the Scientific Method. Put your ego aside.
Brilliant mind + correct data + too much ego = Faulty Observations
Correction “Your high amount of deduction…”
A good example of using proxies vs the actual data is the 10Be and 14C on the sunpots numbers. We can see times where both actually come close to the actual data, and time when they are terribly off. The proxy is a good indication of data never recorded, but it will never be a substitute for real data.
Even Tree Ring is a good proxy for climate across regions for which data was never recorded, but it gets messy compared to the real stuff. You get generalizations, but not a whole lot more. What’s the problem? Not enough trees found for record purposes and microclimates getting in the way.
Who knows what’s getting in the way of 10Be and 14C, but it’s painfully obvious, and a good lesson.
> Like I say, you had to be there.
Sorry I missed it. Next time please send me an invitation. My life (such as it is) is incomplete!
See the surfacestations gallery. After around 150 virtual surveys I am starting to get “procedure” on the brain.
To continue what Robert set forth about PROXY VERSUS ACTUAL data…from the words of Princeton physicist Will Happer today testifying before Congress. Read this quote:
“…In the Third Assessment Report of the IPCC. I could hardly believe my eyes. Both the little ice age and the Medieval Warm Period were gone, and the newly revised temperature of the world since the year 1000 had suddenly become absolutely flat until the last hundred years when it shot up like the blade on a hockey stick. This was far from an obscure detail, and the hockey stick was trumpeted around the world as evidence that the end was near. We now know that the hockey stick has nothing to do with reality but was the result of INCORRECT HANDLING OF PROXY TEMPERATURE RECORDS and incorrect statistical analysis. There really was a little ice age and there really was a medieval warm period that was as warm or warmer than today…”
Robert Bateman (20:17:27) :
And what might be 15 or so truly independent data points recorded would change dramatically if 5 of the missing days WERE the independent data points.
That is not what was meant. It is not 5 or 20 DAYS that is the issue. There are 4000 days in a solar cycle. You can miss half of them with ill effect as long as the missing days are random. The point with the independent data points [no pun] is that if one day has a high [or low] sunspot number the next day will also have a high [or low] number, and the next, and the next, … Therefore the data are not independent of each other.
There is no way to tell that, is there?
Nature does things that defy statistics.
Yes there are statistical tools for this, something called ‘sampling theory’
You own TSI reconstruction in your paper is in fact an outlier
That is what makes it interesting and important, just like SC24 is an outlier, and therefore interesting an important.
—–
10Be, 14C: the sunspot number is real data, and a sample is also real data.
savethesharks (20:18:16) :
Leif…you weaken your platform when you make so many assumptions.
I don’t have a platform, and am not fishing for acceptance. What you don’t pick up is your loss.
Please demonstrate how it is “my loss” Leif. I am not losing out at all.
In fact, I am gaining….knowledge of what is true and what is questionable.
It it plausible to say….that you weaken your position when you deduce too much.
Look at the real time observable data: You do not give anyone that disagrees with you….the benefit of the doubt….or even the courtesy that there may still be some significant unknowns.
You don’t like this being said because there is at least the possibility that you may be wrong.
Again….all that is being said is that you assume too much…and you DEFINITELY deride anyone the dares to disagree with you.
How is that scientific??
Come on man….you will strengthen your position when you take your ego out of the way.
Again….back to the original point: Inductive versus deductive. And REAL DATA versus proxy.
Correction “anyone THAT dares to disagree with you.”
Leif Svalgaard (21:45:23) :
Robert Bateman (20:17:27) :
There are 4000 days in a solar cycle. You can miss half of them with no ill effect as long as the missing days are random.
is what I meant, clearly.
savethesharks (22:14:06) :
You do not give anyone that disagrees with you….the benefit of the doubt….or even the courtesy that there may still be some significant unknowns.
of course I do, and of course there are unknowns and uncertainties.
You don’t like this being said because there is at least the possibility that you may be wrong.
Almost all results are sooner or later shown to be wrong in one way or other. I am a proud producer [like anybody else] of such results.
Perhaps you could keep your ego out of it.
And REAL DATA versus proxy.
We were discussing sunspots. The sunspot number is a proxy for the solar UV flux that produces the REAL DATA: the magnetic deflection of the magnetic needle.
Leif you said: “Almost all results are sooner or later shown to be wrong in one way or other. I am a proud producer [like anybody else] of such results.”
INCREDIBLE.
In this statement….you open the possibliity that almost every result is shown to be wrong.
Then…in light of that admission… how…in the Sam Hill can you spout forth continuous assumptions masked as absolutes????
I mean….your blogs are RIFE with that approach. (The way that you have derided my innocent questions to you notwithstanding).
Absolute after absolute. Assumption after assumption after assumption.
Come on man….sharpen your approach. We need your mind (and appreciate it!). We don’t need your ego.
Reply: Last warning ~ charles the moderator
savethesharks (22:46:27) :
The way that you have derided my innocent questions to you notwithstanding
I think I patiently [and multiple times] have pointed out the basic ideas that magnetic fields somehow are influenced by or protect against light waves simple is not correct science [another absolute for you].
Magnetars emit gamma rays, and a powerful burst did hit the Earth on August 27, 1998, producing measurable ionization for a few minutes in the Earth’s upper atmosphere 30-90 km up. It is possible that such a burst ‘loused up’ the data from the ACE spacecraft used to produce the bow shock simulation you referred to. The short duration and the small total energy of the burst at the Earth are unlikely to have caused any atmospheric effects.
You can, of course, assume that there is a causal connection. People have assumed worse things.
If C24 was back in the 18th C. the count would have been ZERO so far.
I have to agree with some of the posters towards Leif.
Leif, you’ve said sometimes that science is about predictions and they are ALL wrong, but at the same time you claim to be so sure about everything yet you can’t even predict anything = You don’t understand what’s going on with the sunspot cycles, no one does, all predictions have been wrong.
the_Butcher (00:26:18) :
yet you can’t even predict anything
We shall see. Back in 2005 we predicted that SC24 would be the smallest cycle in a 100 years http://www.leif.org/research/Cycle%2024%20Smallest%20100%20years.pdf . So far, that looks pretty good. The question is if SC24 will be even smaller than we predicted. Here http://www.leif.org/research/AGU%20Fall%202008%20SH51A-1593.pdf we updated our prediction, and it still looks to be the same as in 2005, but time will tell. In a sense I pray that we are wrong and that the Sun sinks into a deep Maunder type minimum, because that will be far more interesting to study.
Posted this on another thread. Hoping to get some answers….
Anyone care to address directly these two events below, as to what caused the first one,
And it came from this site:
http://www2.nict.go.jp/y/y223/simulation/realtime/index.html
And is there is any possible causation that the above event amplified the epic Sudden Stratospheric Warming as shown on this chart? The amount of red is unsettling….though it is finally, after over a month, of extreme deviations above normal, is finally showing signs of cooling.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/hgt.shtml
Or is this feature malfunctioning? I have tried to get an answer from CPC so far but to no avail.
The 10mb animation began to show cooling weeks ago.
What gives and why the lag?
And does the extraordinarily low solar activity subject Earth to more “bombardment” of particles and whatever this thing was?
The above correlations, though if they at all verify, at least in part….are at least worth pondering.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
savethesharks (08:09:56) :
And does the extraordinarily low solar activity subject Earth to more “bombardment” of particles and whatever this thing was?
The gamma rays are not particles, so solar activity has no influence on such events.
http://spaceweather.com/
Daily Sun: 27 Feb 09 — The sun is blank–no sunspots.
Leif wrote: The gamma rays are not particles, so solar activity has no influence on such events.
That still does not address the Jan 21 event and the other links above.
What WAS IT that was recorded and what caused (or amplified) the super-SSW event which occurred coincidentally at the same time?
And does extraordinarily low solar activity like we are experiencing now correlate with the Earth being more subject to cosmic bombardment?? (not saying gamma bursts Leif I get your point)
Anyone want to take a stab at it?
savethesharks (11:01:02) :
What WAS IT that was recorded and what caused (or amplified) the super-SSW event which occurred coincidentally at the same time?
What was recorded was a gamma ray burst [the simulation was screwed up probably because of bad data caused by the burst – this happens all the time]. SSW-event happens from time to time. Google what causes them.
And does extraordinarily low solar activity like we are experiencing now correlate with the Earth being more subject to cosmic bombardment?? (not saying gamma bursts Leif I get your point)
‘cosmic bombardment’ is too vague and undefined. Low solar activity admits more cosmic rays [that are really particles], but not much more [a few percent depending on their energy].
@Leif Svalgaard (08:25:49) :
The gamma rays are not particles, so solar activity has no influence on such events.
uh, that’s not what I learned…
http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMR9MQ4KKF_index_0.html
“Galactic cosmic rays carry with them radiation from other parts of our galaxy,” said Ed Smith, NASA’s Ulysses Project Scientist from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, USA. “With the solar wind at an all-time low, there is an excellent chance that the heliosphere will diminish in size and strength. If that occurs, more galactic cosmic rays will make it into the inner part of our Solar System.”
also, here…
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/physical_science/physics/atom_particle/cosmic_rays.html&edu=high
I know that photons aren’t supposed to be deflected by EM fields, but perhaps because the solar wind consists of charged particles that the photons can be scattered by….?
Oh, wait, you were just referring to gamma rays, not “cosmic rays” of which gamma is a subset?
HasItBeen4YearsYet? (13:59:19) :
“The gamma rays are not particles, so solar activity has no influence on such events.”
uh, that’s not what I learned…
http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMR9MQ4KKF_index_0.html
“Galactic cosmic rays
Ask for your money back 🙂
Cosmic rays are not gamma rays and gamma rays are not cosmic rays. The ‘ray’ moniker is a holdover from the discovery almost a century ago of cosmic ‘rays’, when they didn’t know what they were. Back then, everything was ‘rays’.
Gamma rays are very shortwave light, while cosmic rays are charged particles.
Since we see stars very sharply [outside the atmosphere of the Earth], the solar wind does not scatter photons appreciably. [it is very thin]
HasItBeen4YearsYet? (14:11:00) :
Oh, wait, you were just referring to gamma rays, not “cosmic rays” of which gamma is a subset?
gamma rays are not considered a subset of cosmic rays. A hundred years ago, people had just discovered X-rays [and ‘rays’ were all the rage], and it was found that radioactive substances gave off three kinds of ‘rays’:
alpha rays, beta rays, and gamma rays.
Alpha rays turned out to be Helium nuclei [particles, not photons]. Beta rays turned out to be electrons [particles, not photons], and Gamma rays turned out to be genuine rays [i.e. photons].
So, galactic cosmic rays are not rays and do not have gamma rays as a subset.
You can, of course, in layman’s terms, privately say that you consider all cosmic ‘stuff’ to be some kind of ‘radiation’ without being specific about what kind of stuff it is, but it helps in discourse to use a consistent and established terminology.
“”” Leif Svalgaard (14:45:55) : “””
Say Leif, when I was in college (University) the accepted value for TSI due to folks like Thekaikara et al was 1353 W/m^2; maybe 1351.
I think these were ballon and rocket borne sensors.
What’s the chance that their residual atmospheric correction would have been good enough for that number to have been real, given todays 1366-7-8 or so ?
George